Two updates this week on Matson’s recent legal issues:

Matson settles fuel surcharge suit for $10M
Ship and Bunker

U.S. shipping company Matson Inc. [NYSE:MATX] (Matson) will pay $9.95 million to settle a lawsuit over improperly billing the government for fuel surcharges, Pacific Business News reports.

The lawsuit had claimed that Matson and fellow carrier Horizon Lines had cost the U.S. government $2 million a year in damages.

Matson and Horizon Lines had been accused of inflating shipping costs by applying a bunker fuel surcharge even when good were moved by train.

Full article

Matson’s molasses shipping agreement with Alexander and Baldwin still in flux
Pacific Business Journal

For more than 40 years, shipping company Matson Inc. was wholly owned by Alexander & Baldwin until the parent spun Matson off as a separate, publicly-traded company in 2012.

The relationship between the two continued in several agreements, and A&B used Matson to ship its molasses from another of its companies, Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co. on Maui, to the Mainland via its Sand Island operation at Honolulu Harbor.

But 10 months after the 1,400-ton molasses spill into Honolulu Harbor, that part of their relationship is still in flux. HC&S now ships its molasses directly from Maui.

Matson has spent $5.7 million so far in legal expenses, costs and third-party claims related to the spill.

Full article